Re: Greek Prothetic Vowel as Reflex of PIE Laryngeal (was: swallow v

From: Mate Kapović
Message: 50978
Date: 2007-12-22

On Sub, prosinac 22, 2007 6:53 pm, Richard Wordingham wrote:
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
>
>> The Greek prothetic vowel is not a regular reflex of a PIE laryngeal,
>> cf. *h1ed- > odont- "tooth". Besides, loanwords do strange things.
>
> The colouring of the prothetic vowel by an adjacent vowel rather than
> the by *h1 is one of these 'irregular rules' that bedevil comparative
> linguistics. For this word, cf. Aeolian Greek _édontes_ 'teeth'. I
> don't know what to make of the accent placement in Aeolian Greek, though.

It depends which Aeolian dialect that is. In Lesbian, this would be regular.

Mate